AfD member of the Bundestag Petr Bystron has long been criticized for possible connections to pro-Russian networks. He is now under investigation – and his office is being searched.
Due to initial suspicions of bribery and money laundering, the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office initiated investigations against an AfD MP and searched several properties on Thursday. According to dpa information, this is Petr Bystron. The Bundestag had previously lifted Bystron’s immunity.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, searches were planned at Bystron’s parliamentary office in Berlin, at several locations in Bavaria in the districts of Munich, Erding and Deggendorf and on Mallorca over the course of Thursday. Eleven public prosecutors and around 60 police officers from the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office were on duty.
A spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office said that witnesses who were not considered defendants in the proceedings were also searched. The main aim is to secure documents and data carriers in order to search them for evidence.
The Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office pointed out that the presumption of innocence applies until a possible conviction. Bystron itself could not initially be reached for comment. The MP from the Munich-North constituency has been the AfD’s chairman in the Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee since 2017. Since 2021, he has also been his party’s foreign policy spokesman and its representative in the Council of Europe and the Interparliamentary Union.
AfD top politicians Maximilian Krah and Petr Bystron have been in the headlines for weeks because of possible connections to pro-Russian networks. Public prosecutors recently checked whether investigations would be started following media reports about possible monetary payments to both politicians.